Other Minds Festivals ➔ Other Minds Festival: OM 8, Concert 2: 02 “Incidental Music to Corneille's Cinna” by Lou Harrison
Digital Audio
Event Type
MusicOrigin
Other MindsIdentifier
OMF.2002.03.08.02Program Series
Other Minds FestivalProgram Length
12 minDates
| broadcast| 2002-03-08 | created
Description
“Cinna” consists of a suite of incidental music created with Guggenheim Fellowship support to accompany a rod-puppet production of the classic French play, which did not materialize once the music was composed. Corneille's play “Cinna” is a grand political intrigue in which loyalty conflicts with revenge. Harrison's special "fully just 7-limit tuning"—which produces a spectrum of finely-nuanced melodic semitone relationships and larger intervals of either ‘pure' or ‘poisonous' affect—is particularly appropriate to a theatre world obsessed with power inequities and strategic alliances, a world in which affinity is tempered by antipathy. Instead of the ‘totalitarian tonal regime' imposed by equal temperament (which often masquerades as democracy), just-intonation pitch relationships such as those of “Cinna” give rise to a complex and changeable tonal theatre, a stratified society of sound in which pitches become actors, creating interval relationships and motives of character. “Cinna” is pitched at A=415 at the request of the composer, bringing it closer to the world of Corneille while reducing the risk of broken strings. —Linda Burman-HallSupport for Linda Burman-Hall's appearance provided by New Albion Records
Genres
New music20th century classical
Musical Selections
Incidental Music to Corneille's Cinna (1955-56) (11:44) / Lou HarrisonPerformers
Linda Burman-Hall, tack pianoSubjects
New music20th century classical
Microtonal music
Just intonation
Prepared piano music
Tack piano music
Related place
San Francisco (Calif.) (was recorded at)Related Entities
Other Minds FestivalHarrison, Lou, 1917-2003
Burman-Hall, Linda